


White Teeth Teen

by Naynda



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Dead Billy Hargrove, Gen, Hurt Billy Hargrove, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, My First Work in This Fandom, Neil Hargrove Being an Asshole, Neil Hargrove's A+ Parenting, This Is STUPID
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25288954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naynda/pseuds/Naynda
Summary: Susan reflects on Billy's smile (and his death.)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	White Teeth Teen

**Author's Note:**

> So... my first work in this fandom. I am so sorry if this sucks.  
> I guess it's the slightest AU - very slight - but I just needed to write this. I needed Susan to care for Billy, even a little bit.  
> As always, I'm not a native speaker, so please tell me if there are any mistakes!  
> This discusses topics like child abuse and death - please read carefully. Your mental health always comes first.

The first thing Susan had noticed about Billy when she had met him had been his smile.  
_God,_ she'd thought, _I have never seen a smile like this._ It had been so broad, so wide and so, so **false.** She hadn't been able too fully understand then, (maybe she still didn't, not fully) but over time Susan had begun to suspect that Billy's smile was as much a defence mechanism as a cry for help.  
Sure, his smile had never been friendly. When he'd smiled at Max - which he rarely did - it had been annoyed, sometimes even outright angry, more a grimace than a smile. When he'd smiled at her, Susan, at first it was obvious it was a fake one - there were so many _teeth_ , so glaringly _white_ and she had hated his smile, then. It had become less and less bright and more angry over time, this once sunny grin, this mask, slipping, to reveal the anger, the hatred bubbling underneath. (There was so much hatred in his smile.)  
Billy had never, ever, not once smiled at Neil.  
(No. When it had come to Neil, there were only fearful glances, eyes filled with hurt, flinching, sometimes a trembling lip or a meek, quiet _sir._ Never a smile. Tears, so many tears - tears she hadn't helped brush away, a sob she hadn't soothed, frustrated shouting she hadn't stopped. But never a smile.)  
Susan's relationship with Billy had never been a good one, never even coming close. There was too much anger standing in their way, too much insecurity on her part and rejection on his - and too much _Neil._ She could have defended him, all these countless times when he'd lay before her, helpless, a black shadow forming under his eye and bruises adorning his skin. He'd flashed her his smile then, too, shiny white teeth coated in blood.  
After a while Susan had come to hate Billy's smile. It had been too broad, too much of a mask, a defence. In her head, she'd labelled him "a White Teeth Teen", walking around with this _stupid_ smile on his lips, grinning down on the world as if he had nothing to worry about, grinning and smiling with his white, white teeth. She had avoided his smile as best as she could, then. It made her blood run cold - Billy had **no** reason to smile, not at Max, not at her, at no one. No matter how angry, now matter how disgusted his smile had seemed. He had no reason.  
(After all, at home, Neil had beaten him up. He'd beaten him up and kicked him until there was blood obscuring these white, white teeth.)  
Sometimes, Susan had hated Neil. Had hated him for what he'd done to Billy, that he'd turned his own son into a White Teeth Teen, somebody who only smiled when he didn't mean it. (Sometimes, she had hated herself for letting it happen, for not helping Billy.)  
But there was something she had only understood a few weeks after his death, something that should have been obvious from the very beginning. Billy's smile had never been happy, never been _real_ \- after all, it had been a defence mechanism. Still, his smile (his stupid, White Teeth Teen smile, the one she'd despised so much) had been the only thing they had shared, the only thing connecting them.  
Sometimes, Susan wishes, crying silently, that Billy would smile at her, just one more time.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "White Teeth Teens" by Lorde.


End file.
